ABSTRACT
Although Tori Amos, Björk and P.J. Harvey have continued to produce significant albums, the crash entry, in 1994, of Brit Pop into the UK charts seemed to sweep aside the passion and rage of the women singer songwriters, replacing it with a more hip pop rock. Designed to appeal to laddishness, Brit Pop coincided with such TV shows as Men Behaving Badly and the increasing popularity of football that culminated in Euro 96 and the 1998 World Cup. Bands such as Oasis (Manchester), Blur (London), Pulp (Sheffield) and the Lightning Seeds (Liverpool) seemed to signify a curious sense of both Britishness and regionalism, and a rootedness in the music of such groups as, for example, the Beatles, the Kinks and the Small Faces. As Amy Raphael rightly observes, ‘Brit Pop didn't challenge … it didn't threaten blokes; it catered instead to lad fantasy, to slam dancing, po-going and gobbing.’ To paraphrase, it was the return of the familiar older brother. 1
